Though in her heart she still prayed for his deliverance--and did it with a passionate earnestness--some impish demon would hover at her elbow and repeat in her unwilling ear Chauvelin's inspired words: "Bring the Scarlet Pimpernel to his knees at the chariot-wheel of Robespierre, and the crown of the Bourbons will be yours for the asking." And if, when she thought of that splendid head falling under the guillotine, a pang of remorse and regret shot through her heart, she turned with a seductive smile to the only man who could place that crown at her feet His popularity was still at its zenith. To-night, whenever the audience caught sight of him in the Cabarrus' box, a wild cheer rang out from gallery to pit of the house. Then Theresia would lean over to him and whisper insinuatingly: "You can do anything with that crowd, citizen! You hold the people by the magnetism of your presence and of your voice. There is no height to which you cannot aspire." "The greater the height," he murmured moodily, "the dizzier the fall. . . ." "'Tis on the summit you should gaze," she retorted; "not on the abyss below." "I prefer to gaze into the loveliest eyes in Paris," he replied with a clumsy attempt at gallantry; "and remain blind to the summits as well as to the depths." She tapped her daintily shod foot against the ground and gave an impatient little sigh. It seemed as if at every turn of fortune she was confronted with pusillanimity and indecision. Tallien fawning on Robespierre; Robespierre afraid of Tallien; Chauvelin a prey to nerves. How different to them all was that cool, self-possessed Englishman with the easy good-humour and splendid self-assurance! "I would make you Queen of France in all but name!" He said this as easily, as unconcernedly as if he were promising an invitation to a rout. When, a moment or two later, Robespierre took leave of her and she was left for a while alone with her thoughts, Theresia no longer tried to brush away from her mental vision the picture on which her mind loved to dwell. The tall magnificent figure; the lazy, laughing eyes; the slender hand that looked so firm and strong amidst the billows of exquisite lace. Ah, well! The dream was over! It would never come again. He himself had wakened her; he himself had cast the die which must end his splendid life, even at the hour when love and fortune smiled at him through the lips and eyes of beautiful Cabarrus. Fate, in the guise of the one man she could have loved, was throwing Theresia into the arms of Robespierre. §3 The next moment she was rudely awakened from her dreams. The door of her box was torn open by a violent hand, and turning, she saw Bertrand Moncrif, hatless, with hair dishevelled, clothes dripping and mud-stained, and linen soaked through. She was only just in time to arrest with a peremptory gesture the cry which was obviously hovering on his lips.